By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City council member championing a bill to protect the Traditional Medicare benefits of retirees from privatization this week rejected the idea that it’s okay for his colleagues to continue sitting around and letting the courts decide what happens next.

By Steve Wishnia

New York City Councilmember Christopher Marte (D-Manhattan) is lead sponsor of the bill that would require NYC to continue offering retired municipal workers traditional Medicare plans, instead of switching them to for-profit Medicare Advantage plans—but none of his 17 colleagues in the Council’s Progressive Caucus have signed on as cosponsors.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Municipal retirees fighting back against the campaign to strip them of their Traditional Medicare coverage and into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan were once again denied a seat at the table this week, so just like the late Shirley Chisholm urged—they brought folding chairs.

By Joe Maniscalco

“This is why.”

Advocates for home care workers in New York are holding up the ongoing failure to end slavish 24-hour shifts, coupled with the state Department of Labor’s sudden decision to scrap a widespread probe into wage theft as prime examples of why Democrats and progressives are losing ground to Republicans and the right wing.

By Joe Maniscalco

They work on the same subway tracks and roads. They help move the same people throughout New York City. But Metropolitan Transit Authority employees represented by TWU Local 100 and the Subway-Surface Supervisors Association do not experience retirement the same.

By Joe Maniscalco

They work on the same New York City subway tracks and roads. They help move the same people. But Metropolitan Transit Authority employees represented by TWU Local 100 and the Subway-Surface Supervisors Association do not retire the same.

By Steve Wishnia

Amazon delivery drivers in Queens are demanding the company oust a union-busting firm after one of its “persuaders” repeatedly called a pro-union driver a “faggot” on Nov. 27.

By Bob Hennelly

This episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour with Keziah Glow is dedicated to 32 BJ SEIU’s campaign to organize building service workers here in New York, New Jersey, and in ten other states—including the anti-union, right to work south. Collective action is now more vital than ever.

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is part two of a special two-part Work-Bites Report. Click here for part one.

The city public hospitals’ system of hiring doctors through private affiliates is devastating morale and endangering patient care, several doctors tell Work-Bites.

By Steve Wishnia

Editor’s Note: This is part one of a special two-part Work-Bites report.

The prolonged contract dispute between doctors at the city’s public hospitals and the three private affiliates that New York City Health + Hospitals has outsourced their employment to is coming to a boil.

By Joe Maniscalco

The New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees [NYCOPSR] is set to officially endorse attorney and independent candidate for mayor Jim Walden at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn on Monday, Nov. 25.

By Joe Maniscalco

The heads of New York City’s public sector unions are once again calling on Speaker Adrienne Adams [D-28th District] to spike efforts to safeguard the existing Medicare health insurance benefits thousands of municipal retirees and their families depend.

By Joe Maniscalco

New York City Mayor Eric Adams attempted some nifty ducking and diving when Work-Bites correspondent Bob Hennelly asked him pointblank on Tuesday why his administration persists in promoting Medicare Advantage.

By Steve Wishnia

A state Supreme Court judge in Albany has annulled the state Department of Labor’s decision to cancel its investigations into wage theft from home health-care aides who worked 24-hour shifts but only got paid for 13 hours.

By Joe Maniscalco

As far as many working class people are concerned, New York has become an increasingly strange and cockamamie place where shuttering neighborhood hospitals, stripping retirees of their traditional Medicare coverage, forcing older women of color to work round the clock shifts as home health aides, and selling off NYCHA housing are all treated as viable economic actions—but compelling Wall Street traders to pay their taxes and help keep the whole place from completely falling apart is just crazy talk.

By Steve Wishnia

As a caravan of striking Uber and Lyft drivers neared City Hall on Oct. 23, many of their rear windshields bore “Stop Unfair Deactivations!” placards.

A bill pending in the New York City Council is intended to do just that. Intro 276, sponsored by Councilmember Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens) and 11 others, would prohibit the “wrongful deactivation” of drivers at the two “high-volume for-hire vehicle” companies.

By Joe Maniscalco

As terrible as former New York City Transit worker Lloyd Archer knew profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance would be for TWU Local 100 retirees like him, he didn’t think they’d be experiencing the level of pain they’re experiencing now. 

By Steve Wishnia

Hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers formed a massive caravan from Hudson Yards to City Hall Oct. 23, marking a one-day strike to protest the companies locking drivers out of their apps to avoid triggering an increase in the drivers’ share of fares.

By Joe Maniscalco

“We are winning this Fight!”

New York City municipal retirees rallied outside City Hall on Wednesday in advance of a new bill by City Council Member Chris Marte that could finally end Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing campaign to strip former city workers of the Medicare health insurance coverage they where promised at the start of their civil service careers.

By Joe Maniscalco

The annual Workers Unite! Film Festival is back in New York City for its 13th season this week, presenting another rare opportunity to shift the focus away from the corporate bosses—and place it squarely on the real world struggles and triumphs of working people everywhere.